The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) (ISO/IEC 23008-2)/ITU-T Recommendation H.265 notes that it has been jointly developed by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) in response to a growing need for higher compression of moving pictures for various applications such as videoconferencing, digital storage media, television broadcasting, internet streaming, and communications. It is also designed to enable the use of the coded video representation in a flexible manner for a wide variety of network environments as well as to enable the use of multi-core parallel encoding and decoding devices. The recommendation is designed to cover a broad range of applications for video content including but not limited to the following: broadcast (cable TV on optical networks/copper, satellite, terrestrial, etc.); camcorders; content production and distribution; digital cinema; home cinema; Internet streaming, download and play; medical imaging; mobile streaming, broadcast and communications; real-time conversational services (videoconferencing, videophone, telepresence, etc.); remote video surveillance; storage media (optical disks, digital video tape recorder, etc.); and wireless display.
A large proportion of digital video today is still created and distributed in interlaced format (usually at a higher framerate—60 Hz/50 Hz as oppose d to 30 Hz/25 Hz). The current version (1.0) of the HEVC (ISO/IEC 23008-2)/ITU-T Recommendation H.265 specification only provides minimal support for interlace tools, e.g., only entire Coded Video Sequences (CVS) can be selected as coded in field or frame mode. This leaves much to be desired in terms of the encoder's flexibility to identify pictures or sequences of pictures that, when coded as fields, can reduce the number of bits in the output stream as well as the objective quality of the video upon decode. Accordingly, one non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates facilitating identification of field and frame coded pictures in a manner that provides flexibility and granularity, such as to facilitate capitalizing on coding benefits associated therewith.